THE
CRUISE MISSILE LEFT, pt.2

The Anti-ANSWER Crusade
By
Edward S. Herman

The cruise missile left (CML), sometimes self-designated "the
patriotic left" (Eric Alterman, "Straw Liberals and False
Prophets," The Nation, Dec. 9, 2002), is a varied assortment of
liberals who share a deep attachment to the U.S. imperial state,
from which flows a visceral hostility toward those who condemn that
state and fight its actions and plans in no uncertain terms. These
critics of the imperial state are said to display a "reflexive"
anti-Americanism or anti-Westernism (Gitlin, Alterman) that lacks
"
nuance" and fails to recognize that the imperial state has a right
to defend itself and does good things as well as bad. These
deficiencies on the part of the misguided left are not only morally
wrong, but they also cause that left to be out of touch with the
people and explain its marginalization. (For more details, see "The
Cruise Missile Left," Part 1, Z Magazine, November 2002.)

The CMLs by and large think that Clinton was a creditable foreign
policy president, responsible for the Oslo agreement and the ouster
of Milosevic, eventually supporting UN forces in East Timor, even
if a bit belatedly, with "free trade" accomplishments, and
an
alleged greater willingness to do things multilaterally than the
Bush administration. But the CMLs also generally credit Bush with
a proper if perhaps inadequately focused pursuit of Al Qaeda and
"
terrorism," and they approved his attack on Afghanistan as a
reasonable case of self defense that got rid of a bad regime.
(International law and "collateral damage" don't interest the
CML.)
Bush is just going too far too fast in his rush to war against
Iraq, although at least one of them (Paul Berman) is in full accord
with Bush here also.

The CMLs accept the Bush premise that Saddam Hussein and his
weapons of mass destruction are a major threat, and most of them
believe that the inspections regime is reasonable and should be
allowed to continue to seek out and remove those weapons. None of
them attack the inspections-"sanctions of mass destruction" package
as a U.S.-British vendetta that has made 24 million Iraqis
hostages, with deadly results. None of them express the view that
the U.S. weapons of mass destruction, or those of Israel, pose a
major threat that the international community should focus on (and
none of them ever mention that Security Council Resolution 687
called not only for a removal of Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction, but those elsewhere in the Middle East [i.e.,
Israel's]).

These views are not "left" at all, they are "moderate"
apologetics for imperial violence, and quite a few conservatives
are at least as strongly opposed to the war on Iraq as the CMLs.
Furthermore, much of CML opinion on these matters is based on a
blind and ignorant acceptance of conventional wisdom. In
his attacks on ANSWER [Act Now to Stop War and End Racism]
David Corn regularly mentions that they have supported Milosevic,
and he and his colleagues like Berube believe that this is prima
facie evidence of extremism. But the conventional view that
Milosevic was responsible for the ethnic cleansing wars of the
1990s and committed war crimes more serious than, say, Izetbegovic,
Tudjman and Clinton is highly contestable, and the belief that the
Tribunal is a strictly political instrument and that Milosevic's
trial is a political show trial is very defensible. I have never
seen a trace of evidence that Corn and Berube know anything about
the Balkan wars, and I would wager that neither have ever read
Robert Hayden, Michael Mandel and John Laughland on the work of the
Tribunal, and that they believe they have obtained the truth from
Madeleine Albright, the New York Times, David Rieff, their own Ian
Williams, and (until recently) Christopher Hitchens (see my two
part series on the Tribunal in Z Magazine, April-May 2002, and
review of Diana Johnstone's Fools' Crusade
[www.monthlyreview.org/comment.htm]).

An important feature of CML writings on foreign policy that
displays their apologetic role is their tendency to ignore
major areas of imperial violence and to object strenuously to
alleged exaggerations of the costs of U.S. attacks on target state
civilians. They carefully avoid East Timor and Turkey's Kurds when
patting Clinton on the back for his foreign policy accomplishments,
they downplay or ignore the U.S. role in clearing the ground for
"
man of peace" Sharon and his ethnic cleansing predecessors, and
they all pay zero attention to the massive ethnic cleansing in
NATO-occupied Kosovo, that has had major effects on thousands of
Roma (and other ethnic minorities) as well as the Serbs. This is
foreign policy concern and understanding that "follows the flag."

Equally dramatic is their resentment at alleged inflated casualty
numbers inflicted by this country. Marc Cooper was indignant that
William Blum should have cited Marc Herold's study of civilian
casualties in Afghanistan, which Cooper described as "unverified"
and probably "false," and Michael Walzer was also upset at
Herold's alleged attempt to inflate casualty numbers and failure to
recognize that they were not deliberate, only collateral. Michael
Berube also was exercised over the unpatriotic left's failure to
distinguish deliberate killing and a mere "military response" (for
a discussion and refutation of this as a meaningful moral
distinction, see CML, Part 1). Cooper expressed not the slightest
indignation over the thousands of casualties of innocent Afghans,
only at an estimate he deemed too high, based on gut reaction
alone. Berube also was distressed at Noam Chomsky's alleged
hysteria over the cut-off of food supplies to Afghanistan, but
showed no concern whatsoever over the effects of that cut-off--or
the war policy itself--on Afghan civilian casualties. It is
well-known, even acknowledged by the Pentagon, that it didn't
bother to count Iraqi casualties in 1991 and doesn't collect that
information in Afghanistan, but this didn't upset Cooper or Berube
or raise any questions in their mind.

For Serbia, Cooper says that there were 500 dead from U.S.
bombing, which happens to be the lowest estimate on offer (provided
by Human Rights Watch). Michael Massing also criticized Herold in
The Nation for possibly overstating casualties ("Grief Without
Portraits," Feb. 4, 2002), studying only a single incident and
confining his investigation to sources in the mainstream corporate
press. Herold was able to show that Massing had no case ("Truth
[about Afghan civilian casualties] Comes Only Through an American
Lens," in Peter Phillips and Project Censored, eds., Censored 2003
[Seven Stories: 2003]), but the question is: why do The Nation and
its contributing editors and other members of the CML so frequently
go to such pains to deflate critical estimates of U.S.-inflicted
casualties?

Corn-Cooper-Berube Versus the Antiwar Protests

For months David Corn and Marc Cooper have been taking multiple
shots at ANSWER, the principal organizer of the major January and
February antiwar protests, and they have been joined in this by
others like Michael Berube amd Eric Alterman. Their claim is that
ANSWER is very sectarian, shapes protests and chooses speakers on
an ideological basis, allows speakers on Mumia Abu-Jamal and
Leonard Peltier (among others presumably diversionary or illicit),
and therefore discredits and weakens protests. However, they give
minimal evidence that ANSWER controls everything, fails to
recognize significant groups among the protestors, or that this
damages the protests. It is widely recognized that ANSWER and its
allies work hard and do a good job of getting out large numbers
among many constituencies. Most of the protesters I have talked to
or whose views have been reported in the mainstream media have not
been upset by the leadership of the protests and have felt that the
protests were a great success.

Alterman perhaps gives the game away when he explains that the
"
radical denouncing [of] America and everything it stands
for--which I heard from the ANSWER-chosen speakers in D.C. over the
weekend [earlier he said he heard only 15 minutes worth of
speeches]--does more harm than good. They harden the other side's
resolve..." His research has also convinced him that the Vietnam
War protests had negative effects [MSNBC, Jan. 20, 2003]. What was
needed was more "nuancing" that would include mention of what
America has done right--to give the demonstration a balance that
would perhaps soften the Bush administration and its supporters!
However, it is possible that large crowds would not turn out for
the protests if the CMLs were in charge, providing that desired
balance with Gitlin, Berman, Alterman, Walzer and maybe Madeleine
Albright or Richard Holbrooke on the podium.

It is significant that the mainstream media have welcomed
Corn, Cooper, Alterman, Berube and company, and that these CM
Leftists have been pleased to trash ANSWER and the protest movement
in these mass circulation vehicles (Corn, on Fox with Bill
O'Reilly). The mass media today are serving the war machine and
have not welcomed serious critics of the imminent attack on Iraq--
and they been largely hostile to the growing protest movement
(obligated to cover it on January 18 and February 15-16 because of
the sheer mass involved, but returning to full-time war service the
next day). It is clear that Corn, Berube, Cooper et al. are
performing in a manner that has geared well into media demands.

The gearing was highlighted by the New York Times Magazine piece
by George Packer on "The Liberal Quandry Over Iraq" (Dec. 8,
2002),
which sounded just like Corn or Cooper, featuring the "unnuanced"
protest signs like "No Blood for Oil," the control "by
the furthest
reaches of the American left," its "narrow ideology," and
the
absence therefore of a "constructive liberal antiwar movement."
There was even the obligatory smear of Noam Chomsky, who allegedly
reflected the view that any U.S. action was imperialistic, causing
him "to leap to the defense of Slobodan Milosevic." (This was
a
double lie, as Chomsky's reasons for opposition to the Kosovo war
were not based on the view that any U.S. action was imperialistic,
but on a close consideration of motives and probable effects; and
Chomsky never defended Milosevic, any more than he "leapt to the
defense of Ho Chi Minh" or any other leader of a state subjected
to
U.S. attack. Chomsky doesn't like aggression, whether by the Soviet
Union in Afghanistan or the United States in Vietnam or now
organizing its assault on Iraq. Packer mimics Alterman, Berube,
Berman et al. in their invariable use of hit-and-run tactics in
dealing with Chomsky, preferring the smear to addressing a
substantive issue.)

Corn, Cooper, Berube and Alterman are surely sincere in their
denunciations of ANSWER, but what is the public meaning of their
outbursts in the mainstream media? By public meaning I refer to
their effects rather than formal claims of intention. Are these
effects helpful to the antiwar movement? Do they help sell antiwar
messages to the public? Do they bring about useful reforms in the
movement itself that will give it greater strength? I think the
answer very clearly is that their almost exclusive effect is to
discredit the movement in the eyes of the public, distracting
attention from the numbers and beliefs of movement members to an
alleged sinister control by "commies" (Corn). This is why the
mainstream media, which have taken on the function of propaganda
agents for the war party, welcome Cooper and Corn and allow
and encourage them to attack ANSWER, which is a proxy for the
protest movement itself.

Corn, Berube, Lerner and the Antisemitism Gambit

Another CML opportunity to attack ANSWER presented itself when
Rabbi Michael Lerner claimed to have been denied the opportunity to
speak at an antiwar rally in San Francisco on February 16th,
allegedly because he was "pro-Israel." This made it possible
to
denigrate ANSWER--and by implication, whether intended or not, the
protest movement--as both hostile to free speech and antisemitic to
boot. The Corn-Cooper-Berube-Lerner axis pushed this line
aggressively, and got considerable mainstream publicity.

Significantly, the far-right, pro-Sharon, and prowar Wall Street
Journal editorial page gave space to Lerner under the title "The
Antiwar Anti-Semites" (February 12). Lerner claimed that this was
all very positive because he said in his article that he was still
going to demonstrate with the antisemites! But this was
hypocritical: the Wall Street Journal wasn't gulled into supporting
the antiwar protest--they, if not Lerner, knew that this was a blow
to the movement.

The Corn-Cooper-Berube phalanx posted a column on The Nation's
web site reiterating Lerner's charges, and got up an Internet
petition doing the same. This petition was quickly featured on
David Horowitz's web site, and Berube participated in a debate on
Horowitz's site on the crimes of ANSWER. As Horowitz is a far-right
fanatic, doing business with him doesn't seem like a means of
constructive discussion of the problems of the protest movement,
although the same may be said of Corn's exchanges on the subject
with Bill O'Reilly on Fox. Berube has reacted strongly against the
charge of being in league with Horowitz, but as Alexander Cockburn
points out, "We find it pretty ripe that Berube should whine about
guilt by association after he and Cooper and Corn have spent months
smearing the peace movement because the Workers World Party and
ANSWER have been organizing demonstrations."

Corn, Cooper, Berube and company also succeeded in getting dozens
of liberals and leftists to sign on to their Internet petition
denouncing ANSWER's alleged denial of free speech and asserting
that it should be barred from any leadership role. The claim that
a genuine free speech issue was at stake here is fraudulent, as I
shall describe below, but it was also hypocritical of Corn and
associates to push it on this basis. Cooper in particular was
deeply implicated in the massive censorship operation under the
now-deposed Pacifica management, according to which nobody (except
the management) was permitted to discuss the Pacifica crisis on any
Pacifica program. This tactic, vigorously enforced by Cooper's ally
Mark Schubb in Los Angeles, was used to provide the basis for
firing numerous Pacifica dissidents who refused to be bound by this
censorship rule. Cooper supported it without question, and Corn
raised no objections. Their devotion to the principle of free
speech is suspect.

But it is a fraud in the present case, and many who signed the
Corn petition might not have done so if in possession of all the
relevant facts.

One fact is that Lerner didn't even ask to speak at the February
16th gathering (a point made by ANSWER organizer Richard Becker,
but acknowledged by Lerner in an interview with LA Weekly). He
would have been denied speaking time if he had, but he didn't ask.
He would have been barred by an agreement among the four protest
organizing groups to deny the floor to anyone who had publicly
denounced any of the groups. This was a debatable principle to
establish, but it was not entirely indefensible as such an
individual might well use the podium to continue denouncing the
organizers, arguably a dubious allocation of scarce time (the
applicants for speaking time were five times as numerous as the
slots). Would denying David Horowitz speaking time be a violation
of the principle of free speech? (ANSWER would not have barred
Lerner from the earlier January 18th rally which occurred before
the new rule was in place--in that case, Lerner fell by the wayside
because he insisted on 15 minutes, rather than the three minutes
given other speakers.)

A second relevant consideration is that at a planning meeting at
which speakers were being chosen on February 4, the fact that
Lerner was ineligible was discussed with a representative of
Tikkun, who raised no objections. This, plus the fact that Lerner
didn't even apply for speaking time on February 16, suggests that
his later outcry about being barred was either pre-planned or, more
likely, a belated recognition that with a little massaging of
evidence he could make himself into a free speech victim of
antisemitism.

A third relevant consideration is that, according to The Jewish
Voice for Peace (JVP) newsletter, replying to the phalanx: "We have
found close and staunch allies in the anti-war coalition. We have
found that our opinion is sought time and again and that our stance
in support of a truly just peace between Israelis and Palestinians
and respect for Israeli human rights as well as Palestinians' has
been respected and represented in the speakers that have been
chosen. At the upcoming demonstration, Mitchell Plitnick [of JVP]
will speak, along with Israeli refusnik Ofer Shorr, and Kate
Raphael from San Francisco Women in Black, Rabbi Steven Pierce,
Rabbi Pam Frydman-Baugh, and Rabbi David Cooper. This represents a
broad spectrum of Jewish antiwar views." This JVP statement goes
on
to say that Lerner's views are welcomed and that "he is an
important spokesperson" for the peace and justice movement--that
he
was ruled as ineligible at a planning meeting, attended by a Tikkun
representative, at which it was decided "that we were capable of
finding another speaker with views similar to his who did not
openly attack a coalition partner." In short, the claim that he
was
excluded because of a bias against his views by the organizers of
the protest is false.

A fourth consideration is that Lerner's charge that he was barred
because of antisemitism among the organizers, and that his voice
was needed to contest protest-movement antisemitism, is another
ugly and politically regressive misrepresentation and
misapplication of the word antisemitism. Lerner has often used
antisemitism as a political tool to denigrate opposition to Iraeli
policies. He has even called it antisemitic to link Israel to the
drive for an Iraq invasion ("Singling Out Israel in the Context
of
a War Rally Is Racist," Tikkun website, Feb. 17, 2003). In the
current controversy Lerner has used the word antisemitism to apply,
not to people who hate Jews, but to those who assert that Israel
today is a racist, ethnic cleansing, and dangerously out-of-control
state that is committing serious war crimes on a daily basis and
urgently needs to be stopped by the international community. These
people believe that Israel right now constitutes a far more serious
menace and problem than Iraq, and that the United States does as
well given its "projection of power" and underwriting of Sharon
and
his policies.

I agree with these people, but Lerner doesn't and the CML people
don't either. Alterman refers to "the disgusting views of Irish
poet Tom Paulin, who termed Jewish settlers on the West Bank
'Nazis,'" but Alterman never uses the word disgusting to describe
Israeli policies, which now include the deliberate imposition of
mass famine and a health crisis of catastrophic proportions, a
civilian death toll of several dozen or more a week, "hundreds of
thousands of innocent civilians unable to work, study or move about
as curfews and 300 or more barricades impede their daily lives,
with houses blown up and bulldozed on a mass basis." Alterman likes
the word "retaliation," and he focuses not on the victims of
retaliation but on the "heartbreaking catastrophe that lovers of
Zion the world over must suffer...to see Israel in the hands of
such a blindly, self-destructive [sic] leadership."

So another public meaning of the CML-Lerner alliance, and the
Lerner gambit, is that it serves to contest and denigrate the
protest movement's valid linking of the Bush aggression against
Iraq and the intensifying ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Ariel
Sharon. Given what Sharon's IDF is doing to the Palestinians on a
daily basis, its aggressive push of new settlements and
expropriations of Palestinian land, its openly discussed "transfer"
policy options, and its enthusiastic backing of an attack on Iraq
that will provide a cover for intensified state terror, this is
apologetics for something truly evil and "disgusting," under
the
guise of protecting free speech.